


Tiger Balm

by PunkHazard



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-20
Packaged: 2017-12-22 21:11:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkHazard/pseuds/PunkHazard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For all the little ways they differ, Mako notes privately that all three triplets have the exact same flinch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

» **(2014)**

Mako knocks on the door labeled ᴄʀɪᴍsᴏɴ ᴛʏᴘʜᴏᴏɴ and the muffled, steady thump of a basketball's bounce stops abruptly. 

Jin opens the door with a ball under his arm, almost comically confused that he can't see anyone until he looks down, expression shifting instantaneously from bewilderment to excitement. 「Hey,」 he says cheerfully, Japanese smoother and easier than the last time they'd met, stepping back and toeing his door open all the way so she can go inside and properly greet his brothers, 「welcome back to Hong Kong!」 

「I wanted to thank you for taking care of me last time I visited,」 she says politely, and then fishes a scrap of paper out of her pocket, 「so I drew this for Cheung-nii and Hu-nii and Jin-nii.」 

The triplets are sixteen, practically adults already, and a drawing seems silly all of a sudden, to give to people who could theoretically go out into the city and buy all sorts of things. Still, Mako doesn't even know why she'd worried, because Jin looks over his shoulder and calls to the rest of the triplets, 「You hear that, brothers? We get -nii now.」 

Cheung and Hu are sitting on a bed, roll of tape between them and a small jar of some kind of ointment open on the sheets. Hu's just finished wrapping his hand— tape over red and inflamed knuckles, then a long strip of cloth layered over all of it, reinforced at the wrists. Cheung's already done, moved on to carefully rubbing the salve over his own finger joints. 

「We heard,」 he says, standing up and making his way over, leaning heavily on Jin's shoulder to look at Mako's picture. 「Hey, that's cute. Is that Sailor... M... ercury?」 

Jin laughs, then points at a rough approximation of Crimson Typhoon's final design with three little stick people on her shoulder. 「Those three are us, right? She's helping us fight kaiju? Where're you?」 

Mako beams back, then points at a monster rising from the depths of the ocean, then at a little blue figure riding on its head. 

「Ah, you're on their side?!」 

「No, I'm stabbing it in the brain,」 Mako chirps, understanding of his misinterpretation. 「You were too slow, so you came out to watch.」 

「Wow,」 Hu says from the bed where he's half-listening to the conversation, startled into laughter. 

The atmosphere is more subdued than she remembers, heavy and tired, none of the same easy, quiet conversation that usually flows between them, but she shrugs it off. Jin takes the picture, plops it down on his desk over a set of blueprints and scraps of paper with notes scrawled hastily in every free space and turns on the light to get a better look. 「That's great, Mako-chan. We really appreciate it.」 

She asks after a few seconds, peering up at Jin and Cheung with wide, hopeful eyes, 「Are you training soon?」 

Cheung shakes his head, shows her his left hand and says, 「Sorry kid, we just spent ten hours in there.」 

He and Hu are both in gym shorts and Mako can see the shining, ugly bruises on their shins and arms and collars, the visible portions of their hands a mess of swollen joints and bloody scrapes. Everyone knows how hard current and prospective Jaeger pilots train, but most pilots don't actually end up injured— she's seen enough trainees come and go in her year with Pentecost to be sure about that. 「What happened?」 

「We rotate in the Kwoon,」 Jin explains, absently flexing his fingers, and then tugging up the hem of Cheung's shirt to show her a dark bruise on his ribs, 「and they've been sparring all day. We condition a lot, but my brothers don't know how to hold back.」 

Cheung raps the side of his youngest brother's head, impact cushioned through the bindings on his hands, but enough to make him wince. 「Jin and Hu are up tomorrow, so they need to get some rest.」 

Hu finally joins them, one hand held carefully away from his body and a cold patch stuck to his shoulder. 「We'll be doing bag work for a couple days after tomorrow, so if you're still up for it then, we can train together.」 

「Okay,」 Mako sighs, but nods pensively. The triplets let out a collective sigh of relief that she's decided to _not_ be like other ten-year-olds and throw a tantrum. After a few seconds, she wrinkles her nose. 「What's that smell?」 

「This smell?」 Hu holds his hand out, wafting the herbal scent of ointment towards Mako's face and when she nods, he answers, 「Menthol, probably,」 and flicks her nose so a bit of the substance rubs off on her skin. 

「It's cold.」 

Hu flashes her the little tin, the tiger stretched across the cap, then pries it open. 「Yeah. Feels good. Our parents used to use it on everything. Headaches, bruises. You know.」 

「What about this?」 Mako asks, rolling up her sleeve and showing him a bruise on her elbow. 

「Where'd you get that?」 

「Sydney. I... got into a fight with Chuck.」 

Hu offers her the tin, and she dabs a little onto her finger, then smears it over the bruise on her arm, smiling when the cool sting of the ointment kicks in. 

Cheung leans over to get a closer look, appraising her wound. 「The Hansen kid? You won, right?」 

「Mhm.」 

Jin smiles, scuffs his bare feet on their floor and then looks around their room. He ruffles Mako's hair, pointedly avoids looking at either of his older brothers and says, 「How about I teach you to play some ball, Mako-chan? But don't forget to wash your hands, this stuff hurts if it gets into your eye.」 

At her nod, Jin bounces the ball gently to Hu, who dribbles with his uninjured left hand before passing to Cheung and leading the way toward the hangar, Mako trotting behind him, followed by both remaining brothers. 

Cheung adds, 「And you can't tell anyone. If the director finds out we stuck a hoop to the wall behind Crimson's leg, we're going to get yelled at.」 

「Again,」 Hu quips, throwing the youngest triplet a stern look, and the ball. 

「It's _our_ Jaeger, and just the armor,」 Jin snorts. 「We should be allowed to tag Crimson's ass if we wanted to, we're building her.」 

「Not that we want to.」 

「But if we _wanted_ to, hypothetically, we should be allowed to do it.」 Jin pauses, meets eyes with Mako and then lightly bounces the ball her way as they arrive at their destination. She catches it, awkwardly— Cheung and Hu move to sit on Crimson's feet while Jin cracks his knuckles and starts briefing her on the mechanics of a dribble. 

» **(2016)**

Hangar bays are by definition usually fairly cluttered with people and parts and Jaegers, so the silence in Crimson Typhoon's is eerie, to the point where Mako hesitates to step over the threshold, no matter how well she knows that the crew is simply eating dinner. It doesn't seem to bother Jin, who straps himself into a harness at the end of the catwalk, then clips himself to one of the ropes with its other end secured to the ceiling. He calls back to the entrance of the hangar (they've been using Chinese more lately, a mix of Mandarin proper and Cantonese slang), 「Hey Mako, do you want to see how our girl works?」 

「The Marshal is going to skin you if he finds out you're letting her up there,」 Cheung shouts back, both hands wrapping over Mako's shoulders and pulling her back before she has a chance to dash down the narrow walkway. 「We didn't even get to see one of these things up close until we were sixteen.」 

Mako squirms unhappily (she's _twelve_ and plenty old enough to operate a maintenance rig, in her humble opinion), then turns wide, sad eyes on Hu, who resolutely looks away. He usually takes her side, but only when taking her side doesn't result in all of them getting yelled at. Instead, he says diplomatically, 「We have to go up there too. You can wait on the bench, but don't come too close to the edge of the platform, okay? We'll even explain as we go.」 

Mako doesn't answer. 

「Mako,」 Cheung says, leaning down to look her in the face, 「we just want you to be safe. And the Marshal is _very_ scary when he's mad. Which he will be.」 

They're using Chinese, but Mako sticks with her native Japanese— they can understand each other, which is all that matters. 「He said I could fight kaiju when I'm older, I can't fight kaiju if I don't know how Jaegers work.」 

「You don't really expect us to believe that,」 Hu snorts. 「We'll show you when you're older, okay?」 

Harnesses usually cause injuries when they fly out of nowhere, but Cheung straightens up and his hand snaps out to catch a set before it can put either his or Mako's eye out. Hu steps forward for his own, also thrown their way by Jin, before turning back around to regard his brother, absently stepping into the equipment. 

「But it's the most advanced Mark IV Jaeger built so far,」 Mako insists, turning the full force of her attention on Cheung, 「no other Jaeger has the same hydraulics system, and the Tri-Sun Horizon OS is totally custom...」 

They all know who speaks the most fondly of their Jaeger, sometimes like a sister for all the ways he insists that it's probably just their own projections, and Jin whistles under his breath as he adjusts the shoulder strap on his harness, eyes on Cheung's face. All three of them could theoretically talk about Crimson Typhoon for hours at a stretch (and they do), but it takes a special kind of kid to pick that up so quickly. 「She's good.」 

「Brother?」 Hu rubs his hand in circles over his brother's back, squeezes his arm and pulls him gently in a direction that could only be described as _away from Mako_. 「Come on, you know she heard that from Jin, don't let it get to you.」 

「Please? I want to know more.」 

Cheung is silent for a long moment, gears in his head turning frantically before he finally grinds out, 「It couldn't hurt, especially if we're careful.」 

「Is that a new record for how fast someone's managed to break him?」 

Jin grabs the smallest-sized harness in the basket and starts to adjust its straps, pulling each section to its thinnest setting and then beckoning Mako over. 「I think it is. Come here, you'll have to get into this.」 

As soon as his brother finishes clipping her into her harness, Cheung inspects the equipment, tugging lightly on all the joints before ruffling her hair and standing aside to let Hu double-check. The triplets move on to examining each other's gear, securing buckles, strapping on tool belts and popping soldering irons and cans of white and gold spraypaint into their deep, wide pockets. 

「Jin has to rewire a few circuits, we can watch him do that first. Hu and I are just going to touch up the decals.」 

「And next time we test _hand_ movement,」 Jin says, voice clipped, 「we don't move our _shoulders_ while our Jaeger is in the construction bay.」 

Cheung and Hu snicker while they clip Mako's harness to the main rope, then secure her to their own waist loops so she's suspended between them. All three pilots sling another length of rope over their shoulders, and Jin steps off the edge of the platform first, swings and lands feet-first against Crimson Typhoon's shoulder armor. He ducks under the outer plate, and secures himself with the spare rope to an axle. 

「You ready, Mako? Hold on tight.」 

She grabs onto both their waist loops, settles herself in the harness and says, 「Yes.」 

「Count of three,」 Hu says, feeding his 'biner some rope and locking it in while Cheung does the same. 

Having inside jokes works for triplets, but Cheung and Hu remember abruptly that it's not necessarily helpful when they're working with someone else because when Cheung quips, 「Three,」 and they hop easily off the edge of the catwalk, Mako's grip tightens painfully and her nails practically scrape off the layer of skin just under their belts. 

They land on Crimson Typhoon lightly, but hissing though their teeth, both of them immediately reaching for Mako's hands and prying them away. 

「Sorry,」 she says after a long silence. 

「No, it was our fault.」 

「We should've counted down. Are you okay?」 

Mako nods, and looks curiously at Jin when his head appears from behind the edge of the shoulder plate. 「Brother, didn't you do that the last time you brought a girl up here too?」 

「Oh, the one in LOCCENT. I was wondering what that was about.」 

New memories are uncommon, for the three of them. The early novelty of a neural handshake, reliving shared moments, learning which of them mattered most to each of them, had been fun but in the grand scheme of things, no surprise. Unfamiliar recollections, especially embarrassing ones, tend to stick out like a sore thumb. 

「You chased that rabbit too, bro?」 

「That rabbit didn't get very far, if you know what I mean.」 

Cheung shoves at Hu's shoulder, then points at his youngest brother, both of them laughing. 「One: none of your business. Two: none of _your_ business. Now move it.」 

(Mako's giggling, for some inexplicable reason.) 

Jin is elbows-deep in Crimson Typhoon's shoulder socket, both brothers behind and above him with their backs and feet braced against the armor (Mako sitting comfortably on their legs) while they watch, when the hangar door slams open, Pentecost's deep, rich voice echoing through the chamber. 

" _Mako!_ " 

For all the little ways they differ, Mako notes privately that all three triplets have the exact same flinch. 

"We'll be down in a second!" Cheung calls back, pitch curiously high, "If Jin lets go now, he's going to get electrocuted." 

"Take your time. I only have three meetings to attend." 

Jin works carefully, but he shifts to give himself a better position to move faster, shoulder blocking her view, so when Mako moves, leaning over so far she nearly falls onto Jin's back, both Cheung and Hu snag her harness and climb up, adjusting their anchor ropes as they go. 

"With respect, Marshal," Cheung says, later, in their defense, all four of them lined up in front of him like repentant soldiers, "if we couldn't turn you down, what makes you think we would have any chance against Mako?" 

"She can be very persuasive," Hu agrees, "and very helpful. Mako reminded brother that he still has to recalibrate Crimson's OS update to account for the Conn-Pod upgrades. If we caught it later, he would've had to rewrite hours of code." 

"We are also not as strong as you are, Marshal," Jin says, not completely sure whether or not flattery works on Pentecost but deciding that talking up a man's daughter never hurts. "She wanted to learn, and we have no immunity against her." 

"I've said what I need to." All four of them notice the Marshal's moustache twitch— he turns on his heel and continues as he walks away, "And we will not speak of this again. But if Mako wants to gain practical experience building Jaegers... I trust the three of you will keep her safe and me updated on your progress." 

They bow in unison at Pentecost's retreating back but it's Mako's voice that rings through the hangar, clear and bright. 

"Thank you, _Sensei_!" 

» **(2018)**

「Hypothetically,」 Mako asks at lunch, in the middle of the summer of 2018, only a month after the triplets' first kill, her hair bobbed short against the oppressive humidity even inside the Hong Kong Shatterdome, 「if I were to dye my hair blue, where would I do it?」 

「Hypothetically,」 Hu answers cautiously, spinning a single chopstick over his thumb after he's already cleared his plate, 「if we told you there's a pretty good place in Bone District, would we be under threat of imminent death and violence?」 

Mako sets her utensils down, leaning over her tray to look him seriously in the eye. 「I can neither confirm nor deny any rumors you may have heard.」 

Jin laughs, elbowing Cheung lightly in the side until he shakes his head. 「You'll have to stick with us, but we know someone who can show you how to do it. Is the Marshal—」 

「He has business in Tokyo,」 Mako interrupts bitterly, 「but doesn't want me to miss class.」 

Cheung flicks the edge of his cup, feet braced on the struts of their bench. 「Oh, she's rebelling.」 

「That age, huh. You have class after this, Mako?」 

「Not today.」 

Jin stretches his legs under the table, arms out to the side and arches his back so his vertebrae pop one by one down his spine. He stays in that position for a few seconds, then cracks his neck and sends an offended glare Hu's way when his brother lightly kicks his ankle under the table. He chimes in, just to round out their conversation, 「It's been a while since we've been in the city. We should visit.」 

「Yeah. Can take two of the bikes out, no one's going to miss them.」 

Bone District sprang up around the stripped carcass of the first kaiju to make landfall in Hong Kong, its skeleton too big to move away (but great for structural integrity). Mako recognizes the triplets' insignia, a worn, gold spraypainted symbol, tagged on the pillar of the gate as they ride past it on two of the PPDC's standard-issue motorcycles, bikes winding slowly but expertly through the crowd. No one recognizes them under their helmets, which Mako supposes was the point. She's clinging tightly to Cheung's back, Jin and Hu on the ride behind them. 

Cheung pulls into a well-lit garage already occupied by about fifty people, at Mako's estimate. They're staring while he dismounts, but when all three triplets whip off their helmets, grinning wide, the entire congregation erupts. 

Someone shouts, 「Jin, you little shit, how've you been?」 

「I though you assholes were never going to make a name for yourselves! It took you three years to finally kill a kaiju? How hard could it have been, Hu?」 

「Who's the kid? Got yourself a girl, Cheung?」 

Mako starts when all three triplets immediately draw in, penning her against the motorcycle and cutting her off from the rest of the crowd. Hu's voice rises above the chatter. 「Hey, back off. She's a guest.」 

A man nearly three times Mako's size steps out from the crowd, and sweeps the trio into a hug. Cheung pats him on the shoulder, laughing, and asks, 「How're you doing, Lee? Where's dai lo?」 

「Liu's in back,」 Lee answers. 「How long are you staying?」 

「Just long enough to greet him. We're not here on business or anything.」 

「Good.」 

The crowd parts and Mako follows the triplets to the door, then inside. A man not much older than the brothers looks up from the desk. He's dressed in a crisp black suit, hair trimmed short but styled carefully and when he stands up, face splitting into a grin, the Wei triplets surge forward, piling onto him in an ecstatic six-armed embrace. 

「Boys,」 Liu says as soon as they let him go, compulsively adjusting his tie, 「long time no see.」 

「We're not staying long. Just dropping by Mama Zhang's.」 

「To get your head stubble done?」 

「We're picking something up for a friend.」 

「This kid.」 

「Yeah.」 

「She's cute. Looks smart, too.」 

It's a testament to their trust in Liu that Jin just ruffles Mako's hair (she's almost too big for him to do that, her head easily at his shoulder after her growth spurt) and says, 「Bullseye, dai lo.」 

Liu picks Cheung out of the lineup, then addresses him coolly. 「Having problems?」 

「No,」 Cheung says, and Mako doesn't particularly like the way Liu says _problems_ , but his easy familiarity with the triplets and their obvious regard for him holds her tongue. 

「Then in all honesty,」 Liu says gently, 「you three shouldn't be seen here.」 

Mako looks at him, curious, but at a minute shake of Hu's head, she pretends not to notice that anything remotely out of an ordinary visit to an old friend had even been hinted at. Cheung snorts, 「It's not like we've made a big secret of our affiliations. Besides, only a _gwailo_ would try and hold that against us.」 

「There's been more of them in town, lately. Your old friend Hannibal Chau is back, for one.」 

Hu scowls. 「Is _he_ causing problems?」 

「No, he's paying to use our turf, and he supplies some of the medicine shops. That's also no longer your business, so don't ask me again.」 

「Of course it's our business—」 

「This is our city—」 

「No,」 Cheung says, interrupting both his younger brothers, 「he's right. We left the city to Liu, so trust him to take care of it. Our business is protecting Asia from kaiju.」 

Jin and Hu both give him wide-eyed, pleading looks and a simultaneous, 「 _Brother_.」 

Cheung drags Jin into a loving headlock, grinds his knuckles into his scalp and winks at Mako. 「Anyway, this is Ling Mako. Said like 'Mori'. She's Stacker Pentecost's kid, so you two might as well get to know each other. Mako, Liu's a good friend to have, so we're going to stay out of his business. But if you ever get caught in a jam in Hong Kong, we're officially vouching for you.」 

Liu nods pensively, and returns Mako's bow with a shallower one of his own. 「Welcome to the Wei Clan, little sister. Take care of my brothers for me, would you?」 

Mako glances at the triplets, all three of them rolling their eyes, before she looks back at Liu and nods. 「Yes. Someone has to keep them out of trouble.」 

「That's what I like to hear.」 

Cheung lets Jin go, then shoves both him and Hu at Liu for a brief but warm farewell hug. He steps up once they disengage, clasps hands, then pulls him in so their arms are sandwiched between their chests. 「Stay safe, dai lo.」 

「You too, Cheung. Kill 'em all.」 

Liu smacks the triplets lightly on the backs of their heads as they turn to walk away, then waves politely at Mako when she looks over her shoulder at him. The men inside the garage have lined up outside of the door, slapping the triplets on the shoulders as they head back to their bikes. They arrive not long after at a salon with an old woman who insists on trimming and dyeing Mako's hair for free, lamenting that the triplets buzz their heads so she's never had a chance to do much for any of them, despite how many errands they used to run for her. 

_Errands_ , with an ominous lilt. 

「That's not true,」 Hu insists while they lounge in the waiting area, 「when we were kids, we'd have dinner with her family all the time.」 

Mama Zhang sends Mako off with two boxes each of bleach and dye ('Kaiju Blue'), which they pack into the storage compartment of the PPDC motorcycles. 

「Bro,」 Hu says as they mill around the bikes, preparing to head back to the Shatterdome. He looks down the closest street crammed to overflowing with food carts, scuffs his boots on the concrete and sighs,「I'm hungry.」 

「We haven't been to the night market in _years_ ,」 Jin says, almost moaning as the smell of frying seafood wafts down the street. 「And Mako's never been out here, right? I have cash.」 

They end up strolling through the market, samples and portions pressed into their hands from nearly every vendor, all of them refusing payment. Mako has a small bucket of tiny whole crabs, battered and deep-fried, and she's sniffing the thing when Jin takes one out of the container and pops it into his mouth. 

「The radiation in kaiju blood has a short half-life and the ocean dissipates most of it anyway,」 Cheung explains. 「Seafood is safe unless there's been an attack in the last few hours.」 

「Maybe she's just afraid to eat the thing whole,」 Hu suggests, grinning when Mako frowns at him, resolutely takes a crab and bites it savagely in half. 

「It's good,」 she says, mouth full, and downs the rest of it. She takes a plastic cup of some sort of jelly drink from Cheung to wash it down. 

Jin's mouth slowly curves into a wide, manic smile as he hands her a grilled squid on a skewer and watches her tear into it. 「Okay, we should let her try the liver. Intestines too. Tripe? Do the Japanese eat tripe? This is going to be fun.」 

「Let's see if the Taiwanese stand is still open,」 Hu adds excitedly. 「 _Oa misua, oa jian_ , we haven't had that in forever.」 

「And we gotta make her eat stinky tofu.」 

Cheung reins Jin back with a light elbow to his ribs. 「Whoa, hey, let's not scare her off now.」 

「Bring it on,」 Mako says, eyes shining. 

After candied strawberries on a skewer for dessert, all their bellies distended from the amount of food they'd managed to eat, they begin the long trek back to the other end of the market, a comfortable, contemplative silence between all four. (Or maybe they're just too full to talk.) 

「I thought,」 Mako says after a few minutes of walking, now that she's had time to mull over her day, absently twisting the ends of her newly-dyed hair between her fingers, 「Wei was just your family name.」 

「It is, but there's more to it,」 Cheung says, weaving through the crowd and politely greeting the citizens who recognize them, but not stopping. 「The 'clan' is more of an... organization. We used to really like hip-hop, so.」 

「Like the Yakuza?」 Mako asks, voice flat. 

「Nowhere near as big as the Yakuza, or as organized.」 Hu absently kicks a cardbord box out of his way, hands deep in his pockets. 

「Liu's our cousin. His parents took us in after we left Shanghai, and they died when Reckoner hit Hong Kong, so we all came up together.」 Jin returns his brothers' stern you-are-giving-people-too-much-information looks with a scowl of his own, but he cuts himself off anyway, ending with a light-hearted, 「I'd say we turned out fine.」 

「Hong Kong has the best food out of all the Domes,」 Hu says cheerfully, 「he handles a pretty big chunk of the supply chain. Dai lo likes to spoil us.」 

「Why are you telling me this?」 

「It's useful for you to know.」 Cheung exchanges a solemn look with his brothers, and kicks off his briefing with a deep inhale. 「PPDC needs a contact to him, or it'll lose local support. Supplies will run low, pilots don't get a very warm welcome— it won't be pretty. You have a direct line to the Marshal, and now to Liu. If we... can't guarantee his support personally, that falls on you.」 

Years ago, Mako knows she would've told them that they'll be fine, forever, because they're strong and smart and _good pilots_ but she's seen Jaegers go down against Class IIIs, and knows now that the golden age won't last forever. PPDC scientists aren't exactly quiet about their findings, at least within the confines of the Dome. She wonders if drifting forces pilots to come to terms with their own mortality, or if it's fighting kaiju that does it, so this time, she asks, 「What happened with OS-19?」 

「We just realized a few things, is all.」 Hu switches back to Japanese, as if trying to emphasize the gravity of the situation, falling back on a form of address that gives her nostalgic pangs for the days before she began to truly understand the world. 「Mako-chan, we trust you. Besides, your Chinese is way better than the Marshal's.」 

» **(2020)**

Mako in private with Marshal Pentecost is a whole different creature from Mako in public. She'll defer to him in front of others, always say _Yes, sir_ , hold his umbrella and back him up. When they're alone, Mako is relentless. 

"I am sixteen. I am old enough to drift and I should be allowed access to the simulator." 

Pentecost heaves a weary sigh, eyes darting to his door, scoping out escape routes the way he's never done as a pilot, or even as a soldier. "Even a simulator requires a neural bridge with another pilot, Mako." 

"I can find a compatible candidate—" 

"I'd prefer it if you didn't just pick any student out of a lineup and—" 

Mako's eyes are victorious as she whips a sheet of paper out of her pocket, unfolds it and slaps it down on his table. A hastily-scrawled _We already agreed!_ , a smiley face, and a meticulously-rendered dragon head insignia seem to laugh back up at him. "Cheung can do it. Jin and Hu, too." 

Pentecost heroicly manages not to whisper _Those bastards_ out loud, but he gives her a chilly, "How exactly would you know this?" instead. 

"I ran the algorithms. We are compatible." 

"When?" 

"Years ago." Mako's hands go up in a frayed gesture of exasperation. " _Sensei_ , you know how long I've wanted to be a pilot. They are veterans, I know it will be safe." 

"They are busy training between defending large swathes of Asia from the kaiju, you would just be a distraction." 

"Cheung said any of them would drift with me when they had the time. I can learn from them. There won't be another kaiju attack for weeks, and they train two at a time most days." 

He'd be lying if he said that he were waiting for Mako to bring him insurmountable evidence that she is indeed ready to step into a training rig, but Stacker has always considered himself a very reasonable authority figure, and he caves when Mako stands at attention before him, eyes boring into his. No tears, no raised voice, only tight control and a calculating, undefeated determination to scale up her wheedling. 

"Fine," he says, and can't suppress a smile at her arm-pump and two-foot leap into the air. 

(He'll still blame the Wei triplets for encouraging her, though.) 

「Training sims are less intense than a neural handshake through Jaegers,」 Cheung explains, later, as he steps into the harness. 「Just relax and you'll be killing imaginary kaiju in no time.」 

「You won't tell anyone if I think embarrassing things?」 

He reaches across the space between them and smacks her lightly on the helmet. 「You couldn't possibly think worse things than what goes through Hu's head. My brothers might dig yours up, though.」 

「Good. I'm ready to start.」 

Cheung's clearest memory is a flash of dingy streets, his fingers twisted in a mass of dark hair over a bloodied face. Someone taps him on the shoulder— it's Jin (he couldn't be more than fifteen), a cut under his eye, and he lets the stranger drop to his knees, turns and seizes Jin's face, thumbs away tracks of blood to inspect his wound. 

There's a roar of sound from the shore, mostly cheers and whistles; Jin breaks away, takes off down the street and Cheung follows, pausing just long enough to watch Hu kick some poor bastard's ribs in a few times. He grabs his brother's hand and they sprint after Jin, vaulting over five prone bodies as they go, though Hu nearly trips over one. 

Mako knows she probably shouldn't, but the giddy excitement from Cheung's memory is infectious and she laughs at a wicked thought ( _He probably just wanted to kick that asshole in the face again_!), breathless with anticipation as all three triplets reach the docks. They vault over crates to stand on top of a freight container, trying to catch a glimpse of Coyote Tango in the bay, the massive Jaeger strapped to an aircraft carrier on its way to the half-built Hong Kong Shatterdome. 

Cheung's recollection ends, but their drift stays on Coyote Tango, throwing them into the aftermath of Tokyo's destruction. Stacker Pentecost emerges from his Conn-Pod, backlit and haloed by the sun. The world drops away— grief, pain, helplessness and fear withering and dying in her chest as he smiles at her. 

Then, silence. 

「Damn,」 Cheung says, quietly awed, 「I'm never gonna be able to look at Marshal Pentecost the same ever again.」 

She can feel another presence in her mind, warm and calm, but it rebuffs her harshly when she tries to approach, surrounds her but doesn't try to pick or invade. He's not looking for anything more than what they've already shared, and he's offering nothing in return; 「Neural handshake established and holding,」 Mako says, glancing at the control panel. 

Ten virtual kaiju later, when Mako's finally satisfied enough to call it a day, Cheung sprawls on the floor next to the harness in an exaggerated position of defeat, helmet clutched over his chest, feigning exhaustion (she's still in his head), but sincerely drenched in sweat. 「You lasted way longer than I thought you would, Mako-chan.」 

「I've been spending a lot of time in the gym,」 Mako says by way of explanation, though she's barely able to lift her arms herself. 「I thought I could do more in one session.」 

「Ten out of ten,」 Cheung says, gingerly sitting up and pulling a knee up to his chest. 「You cut it a little close on HC-20, but good call on the eyes. You had the strategy in mind, don't second-guess yourself.」 

「Being in the harness is so tiring.」 

「We get some throws in when we can, to disengage. Buys us a few seconds to take a break if it's been dragging on.」 

Mako nods, thoughtfully unhooking herself from the training station, removing her helmet and standing over Cheung, smiling. 「It was fun. Thank you.」 

「No problem. Have Hu run Scissure with you, he loves it. Jin likes taking down Kaiceph.」 Cheung inhales deeply and says, tone dry as a desert, 「They can get pretty creative.」 

「Is there enough time?」 

「Nn. How long are you staying this trip?」 

「One month.」 

「That's plenty. We're splitting time with Rogue's crew, so you'll have to check the schedule.」 

Mako extends her hands, braces her feet on Cheung's and pulls him to his feet while he continues to pretend that he's more tired than he is, then starts to unclip the armor over her practice drivesuit. She takes nearly twice as long as he does, and he's already back in his civvies by the time she's managed to wrestle the chest piece off. 

「You should probably figure out how to streamline getting out of your armor, Mako-chan.」 He's tapping out a random, tuneless beat on his helmet, unhelpfully lounging in a wheely chair. 「Start from your shoulders. There're three rivets along the outside of each arm, so you can free up your hands to do the chest armor. Four latches each on the sides of the chest, and seven down your legs so once you're out of the breastplate, you can go down the line from your hips.」 

Mako's already out of her chest armor, so she moves on to her arms, stumbling through the left and then smoothly out of the right bracers. All latches on the legs are along the outside, and by the time she's left with just the circuitry suit, Cheung's propped his feet up on a free seat and started a game of Spider Solitaire on the control panel. 

「You're no help at all,」 she sighs, changing quickly into her civilian clothes while Cheung has his back turned. 「Clubs three to the left.」 

「Nice one. And you're out, aren't you? Let's get Hu and Jin and we can eat some dinner.」 

Mako checks the time, sheepishly nodding when she realizes that it's nearly 10PM— they'd spent more than twice as long in the sim room than most sessions ever last, and she follows Cheung out, dragging her feet now that the full exertion of the last few hours hits her. The other two triplets round the corner like they were summoned, Hu brandishing a card attached to a keypad. 「Figured you were about done,」 he says, not a single one of them looking at all surprised to see one another. 「Kitchen's closed, and they changed the locks again. Keycard access.」 

「I should have finished sooner,」 Mako says, stomach rumbling dejectedly, but she blinks when Cheung elbows her lightly on the shoulder. 

「Come on, this should be the last time they change the locks. We'll be careful this time.」 

Mako follows, but asks incredulously as they dash through the empty canteen, 「You're breaking into the kitchen?」 

Jin doesn't slow down, tailed by both his brothers, but he turns his head to look at her as he vaults over a table, 「Don't worry. It's a bit of a hassle, but Hu can teach you how to do it on your own!」 

「That wasn't my concern!」 

» **(2022)**

Australia's climate isn't so different from Hong Kong's. Drier and hotter, but the Sydney Shatterdome's staff keeps the air conditioner turned high so when Chuck steps foot in Hong Kong after Striker's fight in Mindanao, and the first thing he does is complain about the heat _right in front of half the Hong Kong staff_ , he gets looks so cold Mako thinks that he'd probably feel the temperature of the room drop if he were the type to notice social cues. 

(He isn't.) 

"Dad and I are staying in Hong Kong for a couple weeks," he says to her when she greets him in the hangar, "you know, see some sights, scope out the Dome." 

The triplets don't go out of their way to avoid him, but don't spend half as much time hounding him as they do Mako when they pass in the halls. She's busier than ever on her restoration project (the PPDC will need as many Jaegers as it can get), and the frequency of kaiju attacks keeps them occupied. But the Shatterdome isn't large, and when they see her they descend on her like a whirlwind of questions, greetings, cheerfully blunt observations about how she looks much better after gaining all that weight back from the stomach flu she had last week. 

They take off just as quickly as they arrive, after flipping through her clipboard, interrogating her on her progress, asking about the Kaidanovskys and how they looked during her last visit to Russia with the Marshal. It always leaves her disoriented, and Chuck with a scowl, when he sees. (He stays around her, when given the chance. All the other Rangers have at least a few years on both of them, and the only words he knows in Chinese are _ni hao_ , which he says like 'knee-how' and _dui bu qi_ , which sounds somewhat like a keysmash would, coming from Chuck.) 

"Get the feeling those three don't like me much," he tells her once, eyes on the triplets as they lounge in the stairwell of the canteen during an off hour, the three of them idly passing a ball back and forth— Hu backwards over his head to Jin, who's laying on his back at the top of the steps, to Cheung, who's flipping through a stack of paper covered in notes and statistics. He catches the ball one-handed, then pops it back over Hu's shoulder. 

"Why do you say that?" Mako asks. 

"Just a hunch," Chuck says. "What's with that basketball, anyway?" 

"Listening to shared music allows a pilot to deepen their bond with a partner," Mako intones, practically reciting from the textbook. "They don't like using an audio splitter, so they bought a basketball instead." 

"Yeah, I've heard of people doing that. The music thing." 

Mako looks at Chuck curiously, right before his father calls to him from the entrance. "We've got the Kwoon reserved for an hour," Herc says, "get moving. G'day, Mako." 

"Good morning, Sergeant." 

The triplets snap to attention then, moving as a unit to surround Mako and then proceed to the Kwoon with her to watch. 

She tells them while they walk, 「Chuck Hansen thinks you do not like him.」 

「Oh, uh, yeah. We told him to ask us to play ball some other time when he challenged us to two-on-two.」 Jin is the only one who looks remotely sheepish— his brothers roll their eyes, but seem to shrug it off. 「He probably took it personally.」 

「It was right after Tentalus,」 Hu explains, tossing their ball between his hands, then chucking it at Jin. 「We wanted to be alone for a while.」 

「Nothing against him,」 Cheung assures her, 「he's good.」 

「How good?」 

Hu catches the ball as it comes back his way, and he flips it to Cheung next, feinting a steal before it reaches his brother, but he's playfully driven back. 「We've done a few joint missions with Striker. She's faster and stronger than Crimson, but we have more fun.」 

「The kid's probably a better pilot,」 Cheung says absently, starting to dribble, passing the ball between his legs and then flipping it to Jin, who mimes a shot to an imaginary basket, letting his fingers slide over abrasive rubber so the ball spins in mid air and drops back into his hands. 「We'll ask him to play next time.」 

Mako scowls as they approach the Kwoon. She knows Chuck is a good pilot; she's also fairly certain she could be a better one. Hu takes the ball out of Jin's hands and wedges it back under his arm, all four of them pausing in the entrance to avoid disturbing either of the Hansens while they square off. 

Cheung taps Mako lightly on the back of her head. 「A better _pilot_ , I said. A real fight, he's puppy chow. You can take him, Mako-chan.」 

「What do you consider a real fight?」 

「You know, when you really need the other guy to go down and it doesn't matter if they get back up.」 

Mako mulls that over for a second, replaying the times they'd trained with her when she was younger, before they'd properly learned Muay Thai. Most of the moves they taught her were admittedly pretty dirty, in hindsight, peppered with advice like _Grab whatever sharp thing you can reach and poke it into something soft_ and _Always go for the eyes,_ and she didn't ever see much in her drifts with them, but she'd known that none of them had an easy childhood. 「Fights like you used to get into,」 she says. 

「Mhm. Pretty sure big bro stabbed a guy up through the bottom of his chin with a broken bottle once. Before we joined the PPDC.」 Hu laughs, as if reliving a fond memory. 「You've trained with some of Hong Kong's worst, kid.」 

Mako stares at him. 

「Guy was trying to choke Jin,」 he says by way of explanation. 「He lived, don't worry.」 

Cheung's watching Herc wrestle his son into a sleeper hold from a clinch, but he mutters under his breath, 「Despite my best efforts.」 

「We messed up a couple people when we started training so they let us fight each other until we learned to... uhm, not treat every spar like a fight,」 Jin quips. Their tenacity and lack of boundaries were part of the reason they'd managed to make it through the Jaeger Academy, but it became a liability in proper training, where control and cooperation were key. 「'It's a dialogue' kind of thing, you know?」 

「Yes. The Marshal and instructors say that often.」 

「Sarge Hansen has a great takedown, it's coming up.」 Cheung snaps his fingers in his brothers' faces, drawing their attention back to the fight at hand. 「Pay attention.」 

Mako's pretty sure she's the only one who does, because she hears Jin mutter to Hu behind her, _So have you met Max yet? Only good thing in the Australian contingent._

» **(2024)**

Clubs are crowded, full of sweaty, drunk people and music so loud Mako can barely hear herself think. But it's been two years since she'd last been in Hong Kong, and she'd caught the triplets on their way out of the Dome, the three of them plus some of the younger Crimson Typhoon crew cheerfully swarming her until she agreed to accompany them. 

(It wasn't exactly a hard sell. She misses the team, and after she agreed, one of the women had swept her back inside and lent her a nice shirt, fancy boots and a cute but practical— and outdated— pair of skorts. At her insistence.) 

Hu and Jin are dancing, or what passes for it nowadays, mostly just shifting their feet and moving their shoulders in time to the music in each other's general vicinity. Which isn't to say that they don't look good doing it, because there are a few groups of girls shifting closer, like wolves approaching unsuspecting sheep, and Mako sits up a little from her place at the table to watch. 

Cheung arrives not too long after with a drink of some kind, which Jin cheerfully takes out of his hand. He says something— which Cheung doesn't catch, so Jin leans in, close enough for his lips to brush his brother's ear and Cheung nods. 

The girls around the triplets have slowed down considerably and in the crowded club are making room for the three of them. Jin and Hu nudge their brother, grinning. Mako's pretty sure they're trying to encourage him to dance, and if he does that half as well as he fights, Mako's starting to think she might have Problems. But he's shoving back, smiling like it's all a joke, and doesn't seem to think anything of it when Hu faces him, hooks his thumbs into his belt loops and Jin presses up from behind, one hand over Hu's, bumping their hips closer together and moving them all in a slow, sinuous grind. 

Mako sees Cheung's mouth form the words, _What are you doing_ , half a smile on his lips, and she hears no fewer than three glasses shatter on the floor. 

Jin says something else into his ear, turns his head to take a sip from his brother's just-liberated drink, and Cheung snorts, but he slides one hand up Hu's side, rests the other on his neck and grazes his thumb over the line of his jaw, all three of them still rolling their bodies, practically blending into each other as a high, keening noise begins to rise from the crowd. Hu looks over, makes eye contact with Mako and it's only after he winks at her that she notices her mouth is hanging open (thank god for long nights at the Hong Kong Shatterdome and the Marshal's inexplicable trust in the triplets to supervise her). 

Once cameraphones start flashing around them, they break apart, laughing, and draw together again, posing properly for the pictures. 

「Oh,」 one of the neural bridge operators from LOCCENT sighs next to Mako, 「they stopped.」 

Personally, Mako doesn't see the appeal, but the napkins and markers are coming out around the triplets, now that they've been thoroughly recognized, and one girl pulls up her shirt, asks them to sign her chest and as soon as Jin's done it, he muffles his laughter into Cheung's shoulder. They pose for a few more photos, then move as a group back to the table, ruffling Mako's hair as they sit down. 

「You don't look like you're having fun, Mako. Don't want to dance?」 

「No,」 Mako says, 「thank you.」 

「You want to go back?」 

Mako finds her deep-seated admiration for the triplets somewhat dulled by the slow realization that they're actually huge dweeby assholes, and wonders how she'd missed it before. Still, she asks over the rim of her glass of ginger ale (affection and respect still undiminished, fortunately), 「Does this happen every time?」 

Cheung sighs over his own cup— probably cola. Mako doesn't remember any of the triplets being drinkers. 「We haven't been out here in... a year, maybe. Since before the program got defunded.」 

「But why did you do that? If the pictures get online—」 

Hu cuts in before Mako finishes. 「Fanservice, mostly.」 

Jin picks up seamlessly— and after six years of regularly drifting, most of their conversations consist of mutually agreeing with each other and finishing each other's sentences. 「We don't get to do a lot for our fans, so if we're in a club, the girls're kind of into that. Kids always bring their toys if we see them on the streets—」 

「Or basketballs—」 

「Yeah, they're cute.」 

「Moms always give us snacks,」 Cheung laughs, though it's not a happy sound. 「We have enough food, they should save it for themselves.」 

「Crew likes it, though,」 Jin says affectionately, eyes flickering over to a table of engineers pounding back bottles of cheap beer. 

「Guys just want pictures, usually. Or we sign shirts. Sometimes they bring their kids' toys.」 

「Hong Kong's been good to us. It's the least we could do.」 

Mako nods, tired already of being in the club but after months of watching the Marshal worn thin by the pressure of trying to keep his Jaeger program operating, she doesn't actually mind listening to pilots wax on about people they're protecting, even after the glory of their position had faded years ago. She's seen Rangers drawn to fame and adoration; most of them are dead. 

「Do you want to go back to the Dome, Mako?」 Cheung peers into her face, wraps his arm over her shoulders and squeezes. 「You're probably still jetlagged.」 

「If you want to speak to more of your fans,」 she answers sleepily, leaning in, 「I would rather stay and watch.」

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. 1998 is the year of the tiger. triplets’ birthday, holla. they had about three years between graduation from the jaeger academy and crimson typhoon’s launch, so i headcanon that as time spent building CT!  
> 2\. tiger balm is an ointment e. asian and s.e. asian parents use on FUCKING EVERYTHING.  
> 3\. i actually hate that shit but it works for this fic so i have set aside my petty hatreds for wei triplets  
> 4\. i reject comic/novel canon where it suits me!! basically just bumped up the time of onibaba’s attack 3 years since mana ashida’s like nine years old. (triplets are also not all dead because fuck you, novelization)  
> 5\. ‘dai lo’ ‘is big brother’ (also ‘boss’ in gangster slang) in cantonese. ‘gwailo’ is a pejorative way to refer to foreigners, also in canto.  
> 6\. YES I EVEN HAVE HEADCANON ABOUT LIU DON’T LOOK AT ME  
> 7\. (i imagine they use dai lo with liu but among themselves stick with ‘ge’ and ‘da ge’ in mando)  
> 8\. (can anyone tell i really want a prequel)(can anyone tell i really miss taiwanese street food)(does anyone want me to link all the headcanon/fanon/meta i’ve incorporated sometime because there’s a shitton of it)  
> 


	2. Chapter 2

» **(2025/ January)**

Aside from the lack of Ukrainian hard house, which now only occasionally plays in the hangar while the Russian team works on dismantling Cherno Alpha, the conspicuous absence of the triplets and their basketball makes the Hong Kong Shatterdome seem less like itself, staff working with its usual intensity, but tense and morose.

Mako knocks on the door labeled ᴄʀɪᴍsᴏɴ ᴛʏᴘʜᴏᴏɴ and from the silence Cheung answers, "Come back later."

「It's me.」

「Door's unlocked.」

Mako balances the tray on her free hand as she enters, sets it on the closest desk and then looks around the room. It's as clean as it always is, stray merchandise on the floor in Jin's corner, posters and blueprints of Jaegers from around the world plastered on the walls. Jin's curled up in Cheung's bed, arm thrown over his brother's hip and face buried against his side. Cheung's sitting with his back against the headboard and newspaper balanced on his knees. Hu's bed is still made, pillows stacked neatly one over the other and blanket meticulously folded at the foot. 

「You haven't eaten in days,」 Mako says, discreetly gesturing at the food she'd brought (some rice, some grilled fish, some kind of clear soup with daikon and chunks of beef one of the cooks had made specially when he'd heard she was going to bring the triplets some food).

「The Russians bring snacks to the hangar,」 Cheung replies dismissively, glancing down at Jin when he shifts. 「They've been pickling things since they got here.」

「Properly.」

「You understand we haven't been very hungry lately.」

「Yes. But you cannot eat only pickles.」

Cheung cracks first, shaken out of his own grief for at least a few seconds to complain, 「Don't you have a co-pilot to keep you busy? You're supposed to be hounding him, not us.」

「Raleigh and I are partners, but I have a promise to keep.」 Mako pauses, clasps her hands in front of her and pulls her shoulders back. Her expression sharpens, along with her tone. 「And my co-pilot is not wallowing in his own misery.」

「Your co-pilot had five years,」 Jin finally grumbles, voice muffled and hoarse, 「let us have this week.」

「At least send someone else.」 Cheung's fingers ghost over his brother's back, splay open between his shoulder blades and he gives Mako a crooked, half-hearted grin. 「I'm going to hate throwing you out of our room, Mako-chan.」

「You intimidate everyone else. I guess you will just have to step up personally.」

「Send your co-pilot. We'll soften him up for you.」

Mako blanches at the thought of sending Raleigh to deal with them, but she entertains the idea for a few seconds before discarding it. 「My co-pilot is kind and mature. I don't want you to ruin him.」

Jin's shoulders start to shake and when he finally sits up, his eyes are red with dark circles under them, but he's laughing, so Cheung decides to let the comment pass. He's already standing up, absently tugging up the waistband of his track pants and pulling down the hem of his shirt as he moves to the table and sits down. 「Thanks for dropping by, Mako-chan. It smells good.」

Cheung thinks maybe Mako won't notice the mechanical, deliberate way he's moving, and will leave once they give a hint that they'll go back to behaving like everything's _normal_ and _fine_ and she'll ignore the fact that Jin is poking at his food, probably not even tasting it while he forces a few bites down.

She's drifted with both of them; it doesn't work. 

Fortunately, she's drifted with both of them.

Mako backs out of the room, reaches around the doorway and takes a plastic bag, sets it on the desk by the tray and lifts out two containers decorated with a locally distinctive bear logo, uncovering one so the smell of rich, meaty broth almost immediately inundates the room. 

「Holy shit,」 Jin says, breathless, nostrils flaring, 「that place has lines wrapping around the block.」 

What neither of them say but both think is, _Hu wanted to go there_ , glutton that he was, and they'd never had the hour to kill or the heart to get on that line with so many people likely to recognize them and push them to the front. _Someday,_ they'd promised each other, _if it's still there when we've closed the Breach, once we've earned the right to cut whatever lines we want_.

「If you cannot eat right now,」 Mako says, reaching for the cover and a pair of disposable chopsticks, 「I will have to finish it myself.」

Jin's hand whips out, effectively blocking Mako's reach, and he slides the takeout container toward himself, snaps another pair of disposable chopsticks apart. Cheung hasn't been so close to laughing in a week— he thinks _Jin, you baby, you'll forget everything for a bowl of good ramen_ — and it's almost like Jin hears it, because he slurps down the first mouthful and turns his head, eyes bright. 「Brother, come try this.」

Cheung does, leans over his shoulder, takes the bowl and a sip of the broth, sets it back down and immediately reaches for the last container. Uncovers it. Takes the chopsticks Mako offers, moves the whole thing to Hu's desk and sticks them upright into the noodles. Jin's paused, fallen silent, and when Cheung returns to the table, picks up the bowl Jin abandoned and shoves a clump of rice and fish into his mouth, Jin swipes his sleeve over his eyes and turns back to his food.

「It's good,」 he says, trying to cover the sound of his sniff with a loud slurp.

Cheung snorts. 「Bit salty?」

「Gives it character,」 Jin laughs.

Mako folds her arms over her chest, and backs out of the room as Cheung finishes off the food she'd brought in (kids with siblings either learn to eat fast or learn to share; or at least to apply either where useful). He follows her, shuts the door behind him and puts a hand on her shoulder. 「Hey.」

「You don't believe in that,」 she states more than asks.

Funeral rites and offerings for the dead are for the living more than the dead— Cheung's been saying it for years, but now he shrugs, shoves his hands into his pockets and leans against the wall of the corridor. 「I don't like to take chances,」 he tells her. 「A few hundred million of my countrymen may be right.」

「Do you think so?」

「I think Hu is dead, and it makes no difference to him.」 

「But you are not taking chances,」 Mako says, resolute, as if confirming something.

「Whether or not I believe in it makes no difference to how much I like the idea,」 Cheung says quietly, but when he looks at her, his eyes are narrowed. 「Are we on suicide watch?」

She looks down, away from his face. 「Observation.」

「Waste of resources. We know what we signed up for.」 He absently runs a hand over the back of his head, scratches his neck. 「We knew the risks.」

「That did not stop other Rangers who lost a co-pilot.」

「You know us. You miss him too.」

「I did say that you would prefer to be alone, but the Marshal insisted so I volunteered.」

「Tch.」

「I'm sorry,」 Mako says, dark fringe covering her eyes, but not enough to hide the wet tracks on her face, 「that this is all I could do for you.」

That seems to snap Cheung out of whatever train of thought he'd been on, kicking his big-brother instincts into gear. 「Jin hasn't wanted to eat anything in a week,」 he says quietly, and bumps Mako's chin up, affectionately pinching her cheek. 「It's more than enough, Mako-chan.」

Mako remembers in the days after the Marshal's death how many people she'd comforted, reassured that he died honorably without regrets, that she's fine, how tired of it all she'd been, holding together so everyone else could fall apart— she discreetly wipes her eyes and pulls away, inhaling deeply.

She had wondered aloud to Herc Hansen, once, what would have happened if two triplets had been killed instead of one and he'd answered that it might have been kinder to not bother putting whichever one remained under observation (then immediately reassured her that it's protocol to do so anyway). She'd thought maybe that's what he wished the PPDC brass would do for him, but he has a Shatterdome to run and washed-up pilot futures to secure, so he'd had no choice but to move on.

「You okay?」 Cheung asks.

Mako nods. 「Next time,」 she says, 「I'll bring three portions.」

» **(2025/ February)**

"Hey," Newt says, and he's never considered himself the type of person who'd be at a loss for words, but whatever apology he'd had written up beforehand dies in his throat. Part of it may be the way Cheung and Jin look at him, which is completely different from the way they look at anyone in the Shatterdome who didn't probably have a hand in ensuring Otachi's effectiveness against Crimson Typhoon.

Not that Newt's ever really talked to the triplets— they keep to themselves, hanging around other rangers and the maintenance crews instead of mingling with the (two-person) science team or PPDC brass. Which isn't technically keeping to themselves, but— 

"Dr. Geiszler," Cheung replies. He nods, shrugs the restraining hand his brother puts on his shoulder and moves to duck into the next hall. 

He stops when Newt manages to stammer out, "I just— wanted to— say that I'm—" 

"We know," he interrupts. "It's fine." 

"You know?" 

Cheung turns to his brother and drawls, 「What is it about Americans always making me repeat myself?」 

「Pretty sure he's German.」 

Cheung rolls his eyes, but he shoves his clenched fists deep into his pockets, looks away and grinds out, "The Breach is closed because of your work. Congratulations. Good night." 

"Wait," Newt says, brows furrowing as he pushes his glasses back up his nose, and he takes a step forward, "how did you—" 

It takes a while for foreigners to distinguish between obligatory politeness and an actual desire for interaction; Sergeant Hansen and Marshal Pentecost mastered it in hours, and Jin is under the impression that Newt still has no idea there's a difference. Cheung's not nearly as interested in the _fascinating_ interplay of cultures at work, though, and he's not nearly as understanding. 

「Whoa! Hey!」 Jin body-checks his brother against the wall of the corridor before he can move toward Newt— Cheung has just enough control not to knee him in the groin and go for the kill anyway. Jin calls over his shoulder, "When my brother says good night, it usually means _shut up and walk away_." 

Self-preservation didn't get Newt drifting with a kaiju, and he wants to— he really _wants_ to let the subject drop and take Jin's advice but he calls back instead, "Those files are locked to commanders and lab staff!" 

"Did you think a password-protected folder was going to keep me out of the incident report," Cheung snarls back, trying to shove his brother out of the way but not nearly hard enough to seriously move him; they're both still technically recovering. Debriefings aren't usually classified, especially not from the Rangers assigned to the mission, and he'd formally requested to have it released to (at least) him. Hansen had turned him down, naively trusting that they'd let it go. 

(Pentecost would have immediately locked down the files in a secure server, slapped a few layers of encryption on it and then cut off access from anyone with even a remote measure of affection for the triplets. He always did tend to overreact, though he'd also been incredibly effective at foiling them. Herc would learn, in time.) 

"Yeah," Jin says, "you guys really dropped the ball on that one." 

"Did you think I haven't _read it_ — over and _over_ and _over_ and replayed every _second_ of that deployment—" Cheung's voice cracks, and it's not because they're co-pilots that Jin hears the rest of it, mouthed but unspoken: _thinking of all the ways I would still have my brother._

「Bro. Come on.」 

"Good night," Cheung spits, but then he relaxes, leans back against the wall and looks at Jin instead, holds his gaze and then lets his head drop forward onto his brother's shoulder, breathing quick and shallow and pained around the cracked ribs Jin had forgotten about while trying to prevent his brother from assaulting a scientist. 

"Dr. Geiszler," Jin says, pointedly loosening his grip, "please." 

Newt walks away. 

「Been a while since you lost it like that, bro.」 

Cheung mumbles against his collar, 「Been a while since I wanted to punch someone so bad.」 

「Yeah. Wanna trash his side of the lab?」 

「Forget him,」 Cheung answers after mulling it over for a few seconds. He'd sworn that he wouldn't do anything drastic regardless of what was in the report— no need to announce to the Dome that they'd bypassed the new Marshal's authority, and Herc has enough on his plate. 「He's not gonna report us.」 

» **(2025/ March)**

The Kwoon is usually empty at two in the morning, which is what Cheung's counting on while he waits for his brother to enter their access code. What he doesn't expect is two sets of feet coming down the hall, then pausing at the end of the corridor. He expects Raleigh and Mako to keep walking, but they approach just as the door hisses open.

Jin turns to give them a half-hearted wave, but Cheung steps past him and places a hand pointedly on the door to prompt his brother to get into the arena. 

Which Jin ignores, as usual. 「What are you two doing up?」

「Raleigh was hungry,」 Mako says, throwing the two triplets a concerned look but hanging back, 「and he does not know how to break into the kitchen yet.」

Jin nods absently, so used to the tightening in his chest now that he suppresses it before he even truly processes the moment and he says flatly, "Don't get greedy. That's how you get caught."

"Hey, I," Raleigh pauses when both triplets turn to face him, expressions politely attentive but otherwise blank. He continues, "I just want to say that I'm sorry for your loss, and I understand."

"We appreciate the thought," Cheung replies carefully, "but I don't think you do understand." He affords Raleigh the respect he deserves— that is to say, the man who helped close the Breach won't get a door slammed in his face, but Cheung's hands clench into white-knuckled fists and Jin immediately falls back, bumping him lightly on the shoulder.

Raleigh sees, but Mako wonders if he really understands what it means to be rebuffed gently in Hong Kong. (It usually means _back off, dangerous territory, thin ice_ , especially when the triplets have bypassed their usual exaggerated reactions). "Yancy was... he was there, okay? Right until the end. I felt everything. I knew what he was thinking."

"I don't assume to know your pain." Cheung's voice is low, dangerously calm as he turns away to duck into the Kwoon, "Don't pretend to know mine."

"Look, I'm trying to help—"

Raleigh reaches out, fingers just barely brushing Cheung's shoulder before the other Ranger spins back around, slaps his hand away and slams his back against the wall of the corridor, hands clenched into fists at his collar. "You don't," he hisses, "know anything." 

Mako immediately has her hand on his arm, prying him off Raleigh with help from Jin. "Stop it!"

「Brother, he's just trying to help.」

Cheung's temper extinguishes as quickly as it flares, one of the few things that hadn't changed about him in the weeks behind them. Jin was never afraid of drawing his wrath the way he'd do anything to avoid Hu's— his eldest brother could forgive and forget, no matter how short his fuse. Hu remembered _everything_. 

"Excuse me," Cheung says, voice and bearing and expression abruptly empty of emotion as he backs away. He's had years of training, years of learning to suppress himself in the drift, becoming the conduit to connect what remained of his family and a force when needed in the Thundercloud Formation— and even beyond that, Rangers, as a rule, learn not to disrupt their co-pilots. Detachment is the bare minimum.

"I'm sorry," Raleigh replies immediately, and Mako's reminded of why he had earned her trust in the first place, "if it's something I said—"

"We're grateful you're reaching out," Jin tells him, formal now, stepping between him and the entrance to the Kwoon, "but you should probably try some other time."

"What don't I understand?"

Mako interrupts this time, checking Raleigh with a hand on his elbow but eyes on Jin. "You don't have to explain."

"We all know what we signed up for, and Hu didn't suffer, as I believe your brother did." Jin nods at Mako, in thanks, then turns to Raleigh and steels himsef. "We're more grateful for that than you can imagine. But you and Mako— you had the chance to say goodbye."

"The connection broke before—"

"Yes." Jin glances through the entrance of the Kwoon, where Cheung's already kicked off his shoes, standing in the center of the mat, eyes boring into his. He turns back around and finishes, "My brother doesn't look it, but he takes things very personally. Good night."

Mako asks as Jin walks away, joins his brother on the mat and toes off his shoes and socks, "Why did you engage when you knew they would not respond well?"

"You've been thinking about them a lot lately," Raleigh says. "Were you guys friends?"

"No. When the Marshal would travel before I was old enough to attend his meetings or wander unsupervised, I stayed here. More like babysitters, I think. We drifted apart when I began work in Tokyo, but they have always treated me well."

"Sounds like you were close," Raleigh muses, and Mako's not sure if it's because of their drift that he's suddenly so invested in the triplets, or if it's simply because he knows what it's like to lose a brother. She assumes it's a bit of both.

"Wait— Raleigh. _Raleigh_." She grabs his arm, drags him back and sighs. "If you insist, do not escalate. Cheung will bait you, and if you rise to it, he will hurt you."

Both triplets look up, Jin expectant and Cheung annoyed, when Raleigh steps into the Kwoon and puts a hand on Jin's shoulder. "You mind?"

Jin meets eyes with brother, then steps aside. Raleigh takes the floor, returns his opponent's chilly bow, drops into a defensive stance— and loses his first point to a hard elbow at his temple, carefully placed to send him reeling but not to knock him out. Which he's pretty sure it could have, if Cheung had the inclination. 

"One-zero," Jin says.

It's been five years since he'd spent any significant time in a ring, and Raleigh's painfully aware of it now while he watches Cheung roll his shoulders, toes gripping the mat, fingers flexing as if shaking off rust from the weeks he and Hu'd spent recovering away from social contact. They're the same age, both experienced pilots, but Cheung is at ease in the Shatterdome in a way that Raleigh still hasn't managed to become, agile and light on his feet just like his Jaeger. 

The next blow is a hard kick to his side; Raleigh catches Cheung's foot and sweeps a leg out to throw him off-balance, then rushes forward and slams him hard onto his back before disengaging.

"One-one," Mako says, and Raleigh can hear both the pride and the concern in her voice. 

It'd taken her seven years to get the best of the triplets in the Kwoon— and she's had all the time in the world to train and refine her technique while they spent most of their days on patrol. Cheung is almost undefeated otherwise except for the time the Marshal deigned to step into the ring with him, experience and technique landing him on his punk ass— he was still a punk, then— at four-zero, but Pentecost'd declined to fight again. The triplets grow too fast, he'd said, and so does this cancer.

Cheung rolls smoothly back to his feet, cautious after the last exchange, but expression calculating in a way that it hasn't been for weeks. 

Raleigh bounces twice on the balls of _his_ feet, then closes the distance between them, using his weight and bulk to drive Cheung back, throwing a quick series of jabs to his face— neatly dodged before Cheung drives in, allowing a fist to graze off his shoulder and slamming his knee into Raleigh's ribs.

"Two-one," Cheung says, head back, looking down his nose at Raleigh, who's doubled over.

Raleigh's ribs had been mostly healed, but he figures that that's another two week's worth of taking it easy. Still, Cheung's been favoring his left arm, keeping it out of reach, carefully protected. Raleigh hadn't read either of the triplets' medical reports, but he knows a recently-dislocated shoulder when he sees one and his next strike lands precisely on Cheung's collar, enough to jolt him but not so hard as to cause extra damage. 

Cheung backs away, puts some distance between them and bares his teeth, more absorbed by the underhanded pragmatism than any particular show of strength. "Two-two."

Raleigh takes the next point with a good old-fashioned body blow, fist to stomach, and Cheung takes it back, dropping into a crouch and sweeping his legs out from under him.

"Three-three," Raleigh says, grudgingly impressed. Neither of them are fighting at full health, and for all that it's been a fairly short dialogue, both of them are breathing hard, fighting past creaking bones and still-strained muscles.

Cheung's stance loosens from his usual strict, precise form as Raleigh pushes himself back upright. He's lean, wiry, all muscle corded just under the surface of his skin. As soon as Raleigh puts up his fists again, Mako and Jin snap to attention, but he doesn't stop to wonder _why_. 

The finisher is something Cheung'd picked up from his street fighting days, an abrupt change in style, slipping behind his opponent and wrapping his arm over their neck, buying time to widen his stance for leverage, then slamming whatever poor sucker's decided to pick a fight with him head-first into the ground. He takes it easy on Raleigh, partly for his tenacity but mostly resigned to his persistent kind-heartedness, and throws a hand out to break his fall, letting him drop lightly onto his shoulders instead.

"You're right," Raleigh wheezes after a few long seconds, blinking up at the dim lights above them, "I didn't understand."

Cheung stares down at him, eyes narrowed, chin jutting forward. "No hard feelings," he says at last, extending a hand and pulling Raleigh to his feet. "I should have conducted myself better."

"I shouldn't have said what I did," Raleigh answers, "but I _can_ tell you now that it doesn't get any easier." He pauses, swallows hard and nods contemplatively, almost to himself, "Or it didn't, for me, and we weren't twins. You just get better at dealing with it."

They let an awkward silence pass before Cheung reaches into his pocket and presses a keycard into Raleigh's hand, not ignoring his words, but deciding not to reply. He never was any good at small talk. "We stopped breaking into the kitchen years ago, once Hu got his hands on one of the cooks' old cards. Ask Tendo to make a copy of that for Mako."

"This is—"

"It was mine." Cheung sticks his hand back into his pocket, hesitates for a moment and then pulls out a significantly more worn card. "This one was his. I'm using it now."

"We were always going to make a copy for Mako, but everyone's been busy since the Jaeger program got defunded," Jin pipes up, tugging the chain around his neck out from under his shirt to jingle the four dogtags attached to it. "And brother's still upset I took these, so he took the card."

「Four tags will just get in the way.」

「Get in the way of what? Our drivesuits are totally trashed anyway.」

「Of _life_ , you look ridiculous like that. What if they fly up and hit you in the eye while we're sparring? Even three is a pain.」

「I'll take them off while we spar.」

The point, which Cheung sometimes takes forever to get to, comes out like it's being wrenched from him, a plaintive, 「What if you lose them?」 and Jin feels like his brother's just ripped off the scab that had been slowly forming over the raw, bleeding wounds in their chests. 

「Bro,」 he answers, reply catching in throat, 「I won't lose them.」

They stop, letting a lull in the conversation stand where there used to be another mediating voice and Jin's brows furrow, mouth twisting into a pained grimace. Mako and Raleigh take that as their cue to leave, giving two quick nods as they duck out of the Kwoon and shut the door behind them.

「Jin.」

Jin's covered his eyes and when he drags his hands down his face, they're bright, his teeth clenched and cheeks drawn. 「So it'll be like this for the rest of our lives?」

「I don't know.」 Cheung sits down heavily on the mat, then extends a hand. 「Come here.」

» **(2025/ April)**

The triplets had considered ink before— their plans always fell by the wayside, moreso after they signed with the PPDC, but one free afternoon Cheung and Jin duck out of the Shatterdome, hit up Bone District with Liu and all three of them have a black band in the shape of a calligraphic brush stroke tattooed around their forearms. Liu browses the internet on his phone and barks orders at underlings while he waits for the artist to finish an additional red band on each of the triplets, right over where they tied their Prajioud in training.

「This hurts like hell,」 Cheung says later, sleeve rolled up over his shoulder, arm held carefully away from his torso. Jin's poking at his own through the gauze, tracing his finger over its outline until Cheung slaps his hand away, complaining that it pained him just to look at his brother jab away at a fresh tat. 

Liu's entire back has been covered for years— three tigers descending a mountain after a bull— and he has their dragon head insignia inked across his hip. He barely seems to register the new addition, but laughs and hands Cheung a tin of tiger balm once they arrive back at his office. 「Put that on it in a couple hours. Cools down pretty fast.」

「But it's going to hurt while it does?」

「 _Oh_ yeah. But it'll heal faster.」 He watches Cheung drop the container into a pocket, then picks a set of keys off his desk. 「Now let's get dinner.」

「How did I forget how much he makes us eat,」 Jin groans, hours later, once they've been dropped off at the Shatterdome and the two of them have stumbled back into their room. He's rooting around under Hu's desk when he snorts and finishes, 「We took _pictures_. They better not get online, we're going to look awful.」

「That's how dai lo shows affection,」 Cheung reminds him, spread-eagled on his back, words lethargic and slurry. 「Making you fat and then telling you you've gained weight. He's like an old woman.」 

「I think as a culture, we need to find other ways to show affection. Like hugs. Hugs don't make anyone gain three kilos.」 Jin emerges with their basketball, half-deflated, and the air pump. 「Or compliments! I mean let's just consider Tendo, he looks happy for a guy stuck in LOCCENT all day.」

Cheung looks at the ball warily, eyes tired as Jin reinflates it and gives it an experimental bounce. The rubber's already been worn so smooth that they'd been planning to replace the old thing, but it still works, and neither of them have talked about buying another one lately. 「How do you have this much energy after eating so much?」

「But I mean, just imagine,」 Jin laughs, passing the ball across the room, 「we'd be the biggest assholes in the world.」 

He's almost not used to watching the ball as it comes his way; they barely even made eye contact when playing, usually, but Cheung's hands come up automatically and he spins it on his finger, slides himself off the bed and dribbles a few times before lobbing it back to his brother. 「That's a pretty high bar to meet.」

Jin takes the pass, drops low and feints to the left of an imaginary opponent, sidesteps and sends it back to Cheung. 「Not like that's ever stopped us before. Do we ever take the easy way out?」

「We could probably stand to do it more often,」 he answers, falling comfortably into their old rhythm, easy weight of a ball in his hands, familiar grooves in the rubber catching on the calluses of his palms. Cheung widens his stance, dribbles in a figure-eight pattern between his legs and then pops it back across the room. Jin's expertise with technology puts his to shame— but he'd always been the best athlete.

Jin relaxes into the mindless routine of their game— 「Showoff,」 he snorts, and lets the ball fly again as soon as it reaches his fingertips.

Cheung's moving before Jin realizes his mistake, a smooth pass to the unoccupied bed in an empty corner of their room, the ball knocking against a bedside table before ricocheting off and rolling under the bed. Jin starts forward to retrieve it, expression crumbling into confusion in the second of silence it takes for his brother to cover his mouth and head out the door.

Jin dashes after him, arms wrapping over his shoulders, pulling him back while Cheung drags him outside, shuts the door behind them and tries to inhale past the iron fist clenched over his lungs. Late night in the Shatterdome, hours after the staff's turned in for the day and Jin's breath is hot and panicked against the back of his neck. 

「 _Shit_ , sorry, I could've sworn—」

「I know,」 Cheung says, swallowing hard, and of all the things that could have broken his control, of all the things that could bring reality crashing down on his head, of all the things in the past few weeks he'd managed to shrug off, Cheung didn't think it would happen now.

「It's fine, let me just pick it up—」

「No, Jin. It's— _I_ need to— get out of here.」 Cheung chokes back a mouthful of bile and he knows he probably looks like a ghost, the way his brother's staring at him, but Jin's cried his share, indulged in his own recklessness, and Cheung had to watch. He doesn't want his little brother to see him lose control but they leaned on each other, fought for each other and now they live for each other.

He thinks they should be tired of each other by now— Jin hasn't left his side in weeks, but he isn't about to start now so when he says, 「I'm going with you,」 Cheung just takes a step, takes two, keeps going, and they don't have to say anything else.

>> **(2025/ May)**

Late night crawls through the Shatterdome started as a way to familiarize themselves with the layout of the place, scope out the escape routes, find out how security patrols moved and who stayed up late and which doors were unlocked through the night. It had been Hu's idea— efficient, practical, methodical, and they'd stopped once training began in earnest and none of them had the energy to keep it up. 

Cheung used to think nights after training were far too short for the amount of sleep he wanted to catch up on, but now they drag on— some nights he watches the clock, other nights he gets up and changes and Jin will shake from sleep and do the same and follow him out to the Kwoon, or the kitchen, or the hangar to check on the team's progress on Crimson Typhoon. Most nights they sit, but sometimes they'll climb up and buff out a scratch, or retouch the paint, and if anyone on the crew notices the morning after, they don't mention it. 

They don't expect to see anyone in LOCCENT, so when Cheung suggests it Jin pounces on the idea, though they pause in the doorway when they see the light from a monitor still shining. 「Wait. Someone's there.」

「Let's see who it is.」

Tendo turns around in his chair, feigning surprise at the sight of two triplets in the entrance. He stands up, sets down a stack of blueprints and puts his hands on his hips. 「Wei boys? What are you doing up so late?」

Cheung flashes him a tired, affectionate smile, spark of his old energy flaring in his eyes before petering out. "You are physically hurting us with your Chinese, Tendo."

Jin awkwardly returns the hug Tendo pulls him into (Americans— or Chinese-Peruvian Americans, as it were, are much more demonstrative than the Chinese). Tendo gives them a sheepish grin, sympathetic but still giddily elated from Mako and Raleigh's victory at the Breach, months ago. He'd been looking over proposals for what the Shatterdome can become. It's rebuilding, recovering, healing the scar the kaiju attacks had left on the world, and he loves it. "Hey, I'm still working on it. What's going on?"

They share a look, silent conversation flickering between them in slight twitches of Jin's lips and Cheung's furrowing of his brows, before they say in eerie unison, "Just passing by."

Tendo gives them a long, considering look, then reaches for two headsets on the desk beside his. Test models, but fully functional. "You know, it's a pain for two pilots to operate the Pons interface rig by themselves."

He returns their stunned silence with a shrug. The triplets weren't exactly being discreet, but he holds out the equipment and they take them, fingers grazing over the edges of the smooth metal, short nails dipping into the ridges to nudge at exposed insulation. "Thank you."

"Hey, don't thank me." Tendo turns back to his computer, types a few lines and pulls out two chairs for them. "Mako said you boys would be by. I'll be back in an hour, but let me know if you need more time."

「Honestly, Mako,」 Jin says, 「and we were still calling her a baby last year.」 

「Yeah,」 Cheung teases, sliding his headset into place and sitting down in front of the control panel, 「now you're the only one.」 

Jin falls back onto the closest seat, slouching into the cushion and donning his own headset. 「Just start it up already.」 

(It's hot sun, asphalt under worn sneakers and the sound of a ball, bounces quick because they were shorter then and there was less distance to the ground. A hand to his head, sweaty chest pressed to his back and a yell right in his ear. 「Slam _dunk_ ,」 Jin shouts, and he's rubbing his shoulders over a dusty shoeprint, grinning hard behind him. 「Told you we'd make it, bro.」 

It's always Hu's memory. 

They shouldn't be seeing it— here, now— but it's always Hu's memory, and they've lived it so many times they fall into it without a second thought. 

「You almost broke your head open,」 Cheung shouts back, passing the ball to Hu and grabbing Jin's shoulders, turning him in place to inspect the scrape on his elbow, blowing away gravel and dust to check for an open wound, and letting go only once he's sure that the fall hadn't seriously broken skin. 

「Brother,」 Hu says, 「a slam dunk.」 Cheung's slow smile, Jin's ecstatic one— Hu extends both hands, laughs as his brothers come in for a high-five and miss when he retracts them. 

「Hey!」 

「What the hell!」 

「And maybe if one of us ever dunked for real,」 he drawls, 「we'd actually have a reason to celebrate.」) 

— Cheung laughs, the sound muffled and choked against the back of his hand. He's usually the one reminding them not to chase the RABIT, stay in the silence, stay synced, but they're not in a Jaeger and the Breach is closed; no one would begrudge them the luxury of getting lost in memories. 「That asshole.」 

「I don't think he changed at all.」 

「No.」 

(They don't miscalculate often, but walls spring up quickly in this neighborhood and sometimes they're too smooth and tall to scale and sometimes there's nothing in front of them to climb and sometimes he doesn't run fast enough to choose an alternate route but it's only this once that it all happens at the same time— Hu presses Jin back against the wall, arms thrown out to stop him from ducking to either side. There's a pack of boys bearing down on the two of them, sealing off the exit, and he grabs for the half-brick lying on the ground beside his foot. 

The crowd is spreading out and closing in slowly. They all know how much damage a cornered rat can do before it's taken down— but a commotion starts from the back, ripples out until the lanky kid in front turns around and Cheung headbutts him hard enough to send him reeling. 

Hu and Jin take the moment of stunned silence to surge forward, fighting their way through the cluster until they have space to make a break for it, disappearing down an alley, up a flight of stairs into a store and then up to its roof to catch their breaths before the mob has time to recover its bearings. 

Jin peers over the edge of the roof, then quickly pulls back again. 「You really cut it close, brother.」

「Shut up.」 Cheung grins, wipes his raw knuckles on his shirt and wraps his arm over Hu's neck, roughly pressing his brother's head down and trapping him under his sweaty arm. 「Stay closer to me next time.」 

「Or,」 Hu suggests, 「you could keep up with us next time.」 

「Keep up? How was I supposed to know you two would be faster running into dead ends than to anywhere useful?」) 

Jin reaches across the gap between them— not that he has to— and curls his hand over his brother's wrist. The thought flickers across their shared consciousness, _Yeah, you don't get to call Hu an asshole anymore,_ and that gets a snort from both of them. 

(The room is dimly-lit, cluttered with texts and workbooks and posters, but it's Cheung lying in the center of it, on the pushed-together mattress pads they use in lieu of actual beds. He has a bandage across his nose, a deep bruise next to his eye and more all along his arms and collar. A deep gash on his thigh is covered now in a clean white stripe of gauze and tape, but Hu can still see it, if he looks hard enough. 

He's sitting by Cheung's feet, watching Jin alternately stare at their brother's face and put his ear by his nose to be sure that he's still breathing— which is unnecessary, in Hu's opinion, because Cheung's chest is noticeably still rising and falling with each shallow intake of air. 

When the door behind him slides open and Liu steps inside, Hu's fists clench over his knees. 「This is _your_ war,」 he says quietly, not meeting his eyes, 「if we knew we were going to get caught in it, we wouldn't be going anywhere on our own.」 

「I tried to keep you out,」 Liu replies, dragging a hand down his face. 「It's trouble for us but the Tangs have a crafty bitch at their head. Is Cheung—」 

「Doctor says he'll be okay, but he's been out for a day already,」 Jin cuts in, and he's looking at Liu, eyes pleading— completely ignoring the stern glare Hu sends his way. 「We can help you fight. No one's better than us, dai lo.」 

「No. You're going to join the PPDC, remember?」 Liu gives them a tired half-smile, looking far older than his eighteen years as he kneels next to Cheung and carefully inspects his wounds, smirking down at him when his eyes slide open, still glazed but aware. 「I'll have some of my guys keep an eye on you three. Take it easy for a couple weeks until I give you the okay.」 

「Hey,」 Cheung mutters, voice raspy, 「everyone okay?」 

Hu feels the tension drain from his shoulders— he hadn't even noticed it collecting— and he squeezes Cheung's ankle on his uninjured leg. 「Worry about yourself, bro.」 

「We should get them back for this,」 Jin says, pulling Cheung by the shoulders so he can sit upright, then handing him a cup of water. He dutifully drains it before slumping against Jin, nose buried in the crook of his neck. It's not often that Cheung's out of it enough to forget about acting the responsible big brother, and they both feel the sick twist of anxiety rising in Hu's throat, but he swallows it. 

「There's a saying,」 Liu tells them, eyes hard, 「that the wolf will travel a thousand miles and it'll still eat only meat. A dog can walk to the horizon and it'll still eat shit. Let's not forget who we are, brothers.」 

「What's that supposed to mean?」 

「It means, don't put your lives on the line for something like this. Only small-time pieces of trash are arrogant enough to believe that it'll be a worthy sacrifice for a block or two.」 

「I'm sure some wolf out there has eaten shit at some point in its life,」 Jin drawls. Hu and Liu both roll their eyes but he continues, 「Like, what if there's some left in the intestines? I mean theoretically, it could get a mouthful if it's not careful.」 

「Also, we're not wolves.」 

Liu snorts, drags Hu into a rough headlock and grinds his knuckles into his scalp. 「Congratulations, you both missed the point.」 

「No, I mean—」 Hu snorts, looks at Cheung's still-concussed but fairly amused expression. 「Aren't we tigers? We can do better than going to them. Lure them into our territory, wear down their numbers and then go in for the kill.」 

「That'll work up to a certain point, but she'll figure out what we're doing soon enough.」 Liu pauses for a second, expression bitter but grudgingly respectful when he spits, 「Fucking dragons.」) 

_I still don't remember this at all. You guys are dorks._ Cheung sighs, and he shrugs Jin's hand off to rub his palm over the back of his youngest brother's head. He's shaking out of the initial jolt of a neural handshake— it usually only takes a few seconds to settle into the headspace and they're old pros at it, but they're not exactly pressed for time. _And it figures he'd marry her, dai lo always liked women who can kick his ass._

Jin is fresh-faced, except for a smudge of dirt on his face. He's short and skinny and his head is a bit too big for his body (they're at that age), and he grins at Cheung in the time-dilated space. _He's a masochist. She ordered what, ten hits on him before they negotiated the alliance._

_And those were only the ones we knew about._

They build the court around them, concrete spreading from under their feet to the chickenwire fence, baskets rising from the ground and lines snaking their way around the perimeter. High-rises swim into clarity so the space is familiar again, gritty and smoggy and dense with the smell of cooking food. 

_We should ask him when we'll get nieces and nephews,_ Jin snickers, trotting to the center of the court and scuffing his sneakers on the asphalt, _it'll scare the hell out of him._

Cheung nods as he turns in place, absently flexing his hands before he wraps an arm over Jin's shoulders, tugging lightly on his ear. _Hey, where's the—_

A new voice cuts in behind them ( _Ball?_ ) and Cheung's grip on his brother's ear becomes painful until Jin shoves him away, both of them turning on their heels and stopping dead at the sight of Hu spinning the basketball on his finger. _You guys took your time,_ he says. 

The wave of shock and pain and longing from his brother hits Jin like a plane— he's vaguely aware of the fact that Cheung's stopped breathing and the environment collapses around them. Buildings crumble in the distance, the fence twists and warps and sinks into nothingness, concrete melting away and Hu smiles, dribbles, and passes to Cheung, who catches the ball as naturally as if he'd never let go of it. 

「Bro— you don't breathe, I don't breathe— _c'mon_.」 

Cheung lets the ball drop but he swallows hard, finally inhales. Jin cracks open his eyes and sees his fists clench, loosen, open. His fingers uncurl, like he's reaching for something and in their headspace, Hu doesn't move and Cheung is afraid to. _A projection,_ he says, voice thick with grief even while he quotes textbooks from their academy days, _built from residual aftermath of our previous drifts._

_Yeah,_ Jin says. He's been there, and it had manifested itself differently but he picks up the ball and passes it back. _How's it going, bro?_

_Not too bad,_ Hu answers, smiles apologetically. 

_I'm sorry,_ Cheung says. _I miss you. I'm sorry._

_Hey,_ Hu says as he begins to fade away. Cheung is dissolving him, violently rejecting his presence in their mind, and Jin doesn't get it, but he scrubs at his eyes and nods as the whispers of _Take care of each other,_ and _Tell our girl I said hello,_ and _I love you_ echo in his ears and he knows Cheung heard it too. 

「We could've played a game,」 Jin says, 「even though it'd just be us letting him win.」 

「No point,」 Cheung gasps, one hand pressed over his eyes, fingers and cheeks slick with tears. 「If we could— hear him and touch him and play with him in the drift— we're gonna go crazy in there.」 

Jin wants to look away, but he shifts closer, dismantles the headspace, and ends the neural handshake with a quick keystroke. He tugs at Cheung's hand, manages to wrench it away from his face and his brother _never_ cries, at least not when he and Hu ever were, so when he drops his head and tries to turn away, Jin removes their headsets and pulls him back.

「Stop thinking you have to be holding it together all the time,」 he sighs, roughly thumbing away the wet tracks under Cheung's eyes, then dragging him close, pushing his face against the material of his shirt. Jin swipes his sleeve over his own eyes one more time before pressing his lips to the crown of his brother's head, arms curling over his back when he feels Cheung's hands fist in the back of his shirt. 「We're triplets, you ass.」 

» **(2025/ June)**

It takes months, but when Cheung finally snaps (conveniently while he's away from Jin, who half wonders if he should let his brother go off on his own more often and half thinks he should never let his brother out of sight ever again), he nearly gets himself suspended from PPDC status.

He also puts seven American tourists in the hospital— which the Hong Kong press has a gleeful field day about, running several editorials on the awfulness of expats in the city.

 _This place wouldn't even exist anymore if it weren't for Becket,_ they'd laughed to each other, loudly, as if every kid in Hong Kong hadn't been dragged kicking and screaming though at least six years of English by the time they'd made it through high school— and that about half the people on the takeout line were old enough to actually be British citizens— or maybe they just hadn't counted on one of Crimson Typhoon's pilots standing behind them. If he'd been rocking Crimson's colors, they might have been more careful, but he hadn't worn red since her decommissioning ceremony, where they'd retired their uniforms, consigned to a museum along with their drivesuits.

"This could escalate into an international incident," Herc says, head in his hands and Mako hovering in the doorway with her clipboard. "Americans are bloody awful." 

He looks tired, but Cheung's heard him complaining about tourists the exact same way he's heard plenty of elderly locals gripe, and he'd looked torn between laughter and petrified fear of his first diplomatic shitstorm when he and Mako first stepped into his office to give him a pre-emptive warning. Cheung answers flatly, teeth still stained and gums bleeding, "Sorry for the trouble, Marshal." 

"I understand where you're coming from, mate, but I'm starting to wonder how Stacker ever kept you three under control."

"Better incentives," Cheung sniffs around what is no doubt a bloody clot in his nose, and he almost smiles. "For what it's worth, they have no witnesses except each other."

"There were three hundred people in that crowd by the time someone called an ambulance."

"Three hundred locals, and I was the one who called an ambulance."

Herc briefly covers his mouth, drags his hands slowly down his chin and his eyes look like they're misting up for a second before he blinks and picks up his pen again. "And how the hell did you even start this?"

"I said that if it weren't for Cherno Alpha, Crimson Typhoon, Horizon Brave, Shaolin Rogue, Striker Eureka, Coyote Tango, Tacit Ronin and fifteen other Jaegers defending this end of the Pacific in the five years America spent building walls," Cheung pauses to pinch the bridge of his nose, then he swipes a thumb under it to check whether or not it's still bleeding, "there would have been no Hong Kong for them to disrespect."

"And?"

"And that they should go fuck themselves in the eye with a nailbat, or I could do it for them."

Herc tries to suppress a laugh, gives in to it and looks at Cheung incredulously. "Sure you weren't Australian in another life, mate?"

"With respect," Mako cuts in, all business, bringing the meeting back to its original point, "if he were Australian, we would not be having this problem." 

Cheung hisses, and flashes the Marshal a sympathetic grimace— which doesn't look at all sympathetic, blood still pooled in the spaces between his teeth. Mako hands him a bottle of water and toes a trash can over; Raleigh arrives just in time to pass him a bag of ice and give him a chest bump.

Herc shakes his head, drags a stack of paperwork closer to his edge of the table and grabs a pen. "I'll see what I can do to get us out of this jam. PPDC's got a lot of clout, lately."

Cheung spits a mouthful of pink water into the trash and drains the bottle before tucking it snugly into a pocket, still tonguing at a canine he thinks may have been knocked loose. "Thank you, Marshal."

「So that's why I had a headache all day?」 Jin asks as his brother leaves the office, falling into step beside him on their way back to the room. He takes the ice pack, presses it to Cheung's temple and sucks a breath in through his teeth. 「I should've been there to back you up, bro—」

「 _You_ stay out of it. I need a nap.」 

Jin decides to take his advice; it's been months since his brother'd had a fight high to come down from— not since Kojiyama in the month before Raleigh arrived in Hong Kong— and he radiates a loose, detached contentment the way only a junkie does after a hit. When they reach their room, Cheung shrugs out of his shirt, lobs the torn, bloody thing into the trash across the room and tips over face-first onto his bed. He lets the ice pack balance over a raised welt on the back of his head.

「You never would've let me or Hu get away with this,」 Jin sighs. 「They'll get infected if you just leave it like that.」

「Later.」

「I can't believe I forgot that you turn into a blob after every fight. It's not an orgasm, bro.」

「Shut up. You're disgusting.」 

Jin's weight lifts off the mattress, and he returns with the sound of a top popping off a bottle. Cheung's hands curl into fists on the sheets, eyes squeezing shut as his brother starts dripping hydrogen peroxide over the cuts on his back and shoulders. Jin goes over it all with a damp washcloth, clearing away dirt and streaks of blood as the liquid foams. They're no strangers to patching each other up— after watching a doctor do it once, they'd figured out first aid well enough on their own, but it'd been years since they'd last had to put any of that experience into practice.

「Hey, turn over. Your knees are messed up.」

Cheung lazily kicks off his shoes and socks, sets the ice pack aside, grabs for the pair of shorts slung over the foot of his bed and flips onto his back. He takes a second to struggle out of his jeans and lets his brother dump peroxide on the road rash on his knee, then go at his face with an alcohol swab.

He's trying to wrestle Jin and his alcoholic swab of painful death off when someone knocks on the door, three short raps, and Jin shouts 'Come in!' before Cheung can pull his pants back on over his gray briefs. They both know that knock.

Mako asks, 「Am I interrupting something?」

Cheung grabs a pillow instead, then unceremoniously boots his brother off his bed. 

「I don't even know what you're worried about,」 Jin grumbles, 「she's been inside all our heads, Mako definitely knows what you look like naked.」

It's been months since Mako had seen even the slightest hint of their basketball, but other than that, they've more or less returned to their usual mode of operation. Half the Shatterdome still tiptoes around them, avoids mentioning Hu around them, but he's slipped back into their conversation, his favorite shirts appearing on their backs, his favorite foods disappearing from the kitchen. 

「What's up?」 Cheung asks, dragging his shorts on, gingerly over the scrape on his knee. 「You need help with something?」

「I wanted to make sure you were okay, but I see I shouldn't have worried.」

「My snot's gonna be black for the next couple days. 'S about as bad as it's gonna get.」

Jin stands up, plops himself back onto the bed and swings a pillow at Cheung's face. 「Ahh, see, you even worried Mako. She's got enough on her plate, bro.」

「And,」 Mako continues firmly, before either of them can begin to snipe at each other, 「Raleigh and I are getting lunch in the city, so I wanted to know if there's something I can bring back for you both.」

Cheung smirks at her. 「You and Raleigh, huh?」

「It's a business lunch,」 she sighs, already resigning herself. 「We will be discussing our public relations strategy for the months ahead.」

「Ooh, a joint _public relations_ strategy,」 Jin drawls.

「All co-pilots have joint PR representation.」

「Okay but half those Rangers were also totally—」

Cheung slaps his hand over Jin's mouth, gives him a warning look. Jin rolls his eyes, falls silent but sprawls himself over Cheung's legs instead, back of his head tucked in the curve of his brother's elbow, content with the closeness, if not the lack of attention. Cheung suggests, 「Roast pork, maybe. The kind with crispy skin, crew's been craving it and Cherno team wants to try it.」

「Hu really liked that place down the street from Zhou's chopshop,」 Jin says, watching his brother's jaw clench, tendons in his neck stretch taut, then ease. 「We can even afford to be picky now.」

「It might be a lot to carry,」 Cheung chimes in, doing some quick calculations in his head, 「so you could probably just put in an order to have it all delivered to the kitchen. You know our credit info, yeah?」

「Your treat, then,」 Mako replies, smiling. 「Has the kitchen been giving you too many fresh vegetables lately?」

「Aah, Mako knows us too well,」 Jin sighs, reaching up to poke at the underside of his brother's chin, right up until the contemplative frown on Cheung's face turns into an exasperated grin and he slaps his hand away.

» **(2026/ January)**

One year after the first kaiju double event in recorded history, they're tearing up asphalt along the Hainan coastline on Suzuki Hayabusa sport bikes decked out in riptide red with gold trim, Wei Tang insignia artfully splashed over the original logo. January is far too early in the year for people to be on the beach, but trying to lay low for even a week is nearly impossible in comfortable city centers, so they'd hit the road instead.

Jin notices the signs that his brother's pulling over before Cheung even starts to brake— it's the little twitches of his helmet, the slight shift of his grip on the handlebars, and it's almost like they never stopped drifting together. They veer off the road as one, kicking up two clouds of dust and sand and gravel at a parking area just removed from the beach.

「Here,」 Cheung says, setting his bike onto its kickstand and swinging his leg over the seat. He removes his helmet, drops into a crouch to stretch out his legs, stands and leans back so his vertebrae pop all down his spine and he cants his head toward the ocean. 「Let's eat lunch.」 

Jin lifts a plastic bag (two shrink-wrapped sandwiches and two bottles of tea from the 7-Eleven in the last town they'd passed in it) out of his backpack, which he leaves strapped to his bike as they trudge down to the sand. He drops his jacket onto a dune, toes it in place and plants himself down on it, leaving the food on a sleeve and the bottles wedged in the sand while he unlaces his boots. 

「Put your jacket back on, idiot, you'll get sick.」 A pair of black plated gloves hit the sand next to Jin, then boots (socks stuffed inside), and finally Cheung. They've settled far away enough from the water line that the tide won't reach them for hours, but the sun is crawling closer to the horizon, half-hidden behind clouds. 

「It's not even that cold,」 Jin snaps around the cellophane in his teeth, already ripping apart the sandwich's packaging as his brother starts on his own. 

「Fine. See if I'm going to listen to you complain when you're dripping snot on everything.」 

They wolf the food down in about five bites each, follow up (mouths still full) with tea before they dust the crumbs off their hands and stretch their legs. 「We should head back soon,」 Jin says, pulling his knees up to his chest and folding his elbows over them. 

「Yeah,」 Cheung answers, busy snapping a picture of the coastline on his phone, then a photo of Jin from the side. He texts them to Liu, and then to Mako— it had been part of the deal when Mako'd gotten them clearance to take off for a few weeks and Liu procured the bikes for them, that they'd check in once in a while. 

He gets two prompt messages back, and he checks them while Jin leans over his arm to look. 

The first one's a baby with her fingers wrapped around Liu's thumb (plasmacaster from his Crimson Typhoon tat visible at the edge of the frame) and a caption that reads, _I tried to name her Leatherface but almost got castrated_ under it. Mako sends back a picture of herself— a blurry thumb at the corner of the photo but her otherwise unobscured, kneeling next to Max and giving him bunny ears. _Raleigh says he's jealous_ , she writes, _but he's happy you are both doing well._

A few seconds later, and another message from Mako pops up, nothing but a brief _How do they handle?_

Jin takes the phone away from his brother, punches in _Like we're flying!!!!_ and sends it back, though his expression doesn't actually look like he'd just sent an SMS with four exclamation points. 

「What's with that face?」 Cheung asks, taking his phone back and pushing his palm lightly against the side of Jin's head. 「Don't think too hard, you'll hurt yourself.」 

Jin grabs his brother's wrist, pries his hand open, presses his fingertip into his palm and draws eight slow strokes, carving an invisible 虎 into his skin. 

Hu had always had the coolest name, out of the three of them, and they'd never been jealous of it exactly, but there's something to be said about giving triplets three equally appropriate or inappropriate names rather than giving one of them a really great name and the other two average ones. They didn't fight often, but as kids, it'd been a point of resentment.

As adults, it became one of the things they teased Hu about, whenever he'd say something reasonably logical and un-tigerlike. Like _We should definitely run right about now_ , or _These odds aren't great, I don't think it's a good idea,_ and _Did you know the girls at the club keep cash in their bras? That sounds convenient, but not as much as pockets._

「Me too,」 Cheung says, fingers curling over Jin's, trapping the name between their palms.

「You ever think,」 Jin starts, but falls silent. His brother hears it, though, that _it'd hurt less if we'd died too?_ and he clenches his teeth so hard he already feels a headache pounding out from the back of his skull.

「Yeah. Dying's a breeze,」 Cheung answers, voice rough, grip tightening painfully over Jin's hand, pressing down so their fists leave an imprint in the sand. 「It's living that's hard.」

(Raleigh'd said, _You just get better at dealing with it._ )

「Man,」 Jin laughs, digging in his toes, 「we never do things the easy way.」


End file.
